It might not be record-breaking, but it\u2019s a bitterly cold day out in Halifax and across the province.<\/p>\n
The polar vortex sweeping across the country is bringing highs of -13 C to Halifax on Saturday. Temperatures will drop throughout the afternoon, with a low of -18 C. With the windchill it could feel more like -28.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cpolar vortex\u201d has been newly popularized, but the phenomenon is not new. Vortex refers to rotation, John Gyakum, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University, told CityNews. This rotation of frigid air always exists near the Earth\u2019s poles, but at times it expands in the winter, bringing colder air south.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aerial coverage of this\u00a0particular vortex\u00a0is huge,\u201d Gyakum added. \u201cI would say much larger than typical, even for this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The causes of this vortex could be related to a changing climate.<\/p>\n
Warmer ocean temperatures surrounding Canada and the United States have created a storm track across the country that Gyakum said he believes has been brewing for some time. When that storm track interacts with the cold air coming from the Arctic, it intensifies the disturbance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact is, globally, we are getting warmer, but\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0not to say that areas such as where we are today are not going to be getting prolonged\u00a0cold air\u00a0outbreaks at all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u00a0have to\u00a0look at the warming that occurs globally, but certainly on a regional basis,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0quite plausible that we can have some long-term and persistent\u00a0cold air\u00a0outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
But those extreme colds may not be as extreme as they used to be.<\/p>\n
According to Environment Canada, the average minimum temperature for Halifax on Jan. 24 is -11.1 C, meaning that Saturday is set to be colder than average. But the lowest temperature recorded on Jan. 24 in history dropped to a painfully cold -21.9 C in 1991.<\/p>\n
The coldest temperature recorded in Halifax since modern records began happened on February 18, 1922. It was -29.4 C.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the overall map of temperatures throughout North America, there are significant cold pools of air, which everybody can appreciate, but the strength and the coldness, if you will, of those areas of bitter cold are not nearly as cold as they were in 30, 40 years ago,\u201d Gyakum said. \u201cIn other words, the\u00a0cold air\u00a0outbreaks are\u00a0actually more\u00a0moderate than they used to be. People may not believe that, because\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0awful outside, but\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It might not be record-breaking, but it\u2019s a bitterly cold day out in Halifax and across the province.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-438535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}